Category: chickens

Eggs?!?

On By CarynIn chickens, eggs

I was out doing morning chicken chores, and I found two eggs. What? I admit that I have not been vigilant in checking the nest boxes since the hens stopped laying two months ago because last year their last egg was mid-September. Last year they did not start laying again until February. They do appear to have finished their fall molt, but I haven’t seen any of them do the squat (that says they are ready for a rooster).

Egg in a nest box
Two eggs, after two months of no eggs

I did do a float test, and both eggs sunk to the bottom of the container of water and laid flat, which means they are fresh eggs. So they didn’t stay undiscovered for long.

Left over harvest

On By CarynIn chickens, Garden

After collecting the leaves I needed for my recipe (Thai Chicken Basil uses at least three cups of fresh basil), I took the branches that still had leaves out to the chickens. My chickens really like basil.

Hens tucking in to hanging basil

I shove the thick stems into a hole in their chicken swing, which holds it secure so the hens can rip off leaves.

Basil branches stripped bare

It doesn’t take long for the flock to strip off all the leaves!

Magic update

On By CarynIn chickens

Just wanted to let you know that Magic is still kicking. Well, not really kicking as her bum leg is in its acting up cycle. I’ve lost count how many times she has gone through the heal/hurt series, but I feel there is a pattern. When she hurts her leg, her food intake decreases and she rests more. Her weight goes down. Her leg heals. She is able to get around and eat all the things, gains weight until she rivals or surpasses the others, then hurts her leg again. Repeat. Always the same right leg. At this point I don’t do much special except make sure she is on and off the roost at the appropriate times, pick the shavings of her belly that she can’t reach, and give her derrière an occasional rinse to keep her clean. She can usually get around some, and it gradually gets better. Tough bird.

Magic in the waxing part of her leg cycle (no, she doesn’t wax her legs, she is just getting better from her re-injury)

Frozen ring

On By CarynIn chickens

During the extra hot heat wave I made my chicken some frozen treats by putting fruit and vegetable pieces in a bundt pan and freezing it. To give it to the chickens I turned the bundt pan over and ran hot water over the metal. The ice ring popped right out!

Fruit scraps frozen into a ring

The bits of fruit left over from fruit salad went over the best. I made another ring with pumpkin, carrots and peas; the chickens ate around the peas. The ring made of banana and cranberry was a huge bust, they barely nibbled it.

Fresh feet

On By CarynIn chickens
Hen enjoying an active foot bath

My hens love their foot bath, so much so that in the hottest days sometimes there is only mud and sludge by the time I make it out to the coop. So I set up an automatic watering system in the chicken run to refill the hens’ foot bath, just because it is so hot and they use it so often. I thought I would run it just at night, just for a couple minutes, so it didn’t scare the chickens, but when I was testing the system, a hen walked in without a care for the running water. So I added a mid-day top up to the timer. The water runs, stirs up the sediment, and mostly rinses out with the overflow. We still have to go out once a day to make sure the yuck is all out, but at least I feel better that there is a full cooling system available to them.